Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2222: Just 20 Degrees Different…

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“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

I was in a meeting on Friday afternoon where it was told to the group that there is a difference between Magnetic North and True North.  I didn’t know there is a difference, but there is.  It’s slight, like 20 degrees (depending on where you are) but if you were using a magnetic compass and you followed it all the way to the furthest point north, you’d be off from being that 20 degrees different the whole way.  I wonder if this isn’t a good metaphor for how we have to constantly be checking not only the numbers of our business, but also the truth that resides within how we get things done or not.  Patti and I have had a pretty lousy experience in purchasing some outside furniture and as I talked to the salesperson last week he tried to hide behind the numbers and operations of the company, versus recognizing that the true issue of a customer waiting five months for what was to be six weeks was what he should be trying to reconcile.

Jesus is our way, our truth and our true north.  The things of the world, they may look like they are taking us in the right direction, but those degrees of difference from where we want to conclude, won’t be able to be recovered.  Starting this week by re-calibrating back to our True North seems like a really good idea.

Reference: John 14:6 (New Living Translation)